


Our very strange Family

by FireSoul



Series: Waking Up In Vegas [8]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8056576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: What starts out as a joke of a mission starts to turn into a very serious threat, one that concerns not only the Legends, but their friends in Star and Central City as well.





	1. Our very strange Family

"You did what?!" Rip demanded of Courtney, unable to believe that she had been able to land herself in such a predicament, and only a few days into the assignment.

"It's not really that big of a deal," the teenager insisted, sure she could see the problem here clear as day, but Rip was overreacting just a little bit.

"And in her defense, the teacher is a little nuts." Jax said; the team was currently docked in early 2017, their own present, to retrieve a misplaced temporal object. This object turned out to be, for whatever reason, a high school football trophy. So Rip had sent the crew's two teenagers undercover at the local high school in order to obtain the trophy, and their best chance to make that move would be in a few days during the homecoming game. So in the meantime they were mapping out a plan, learning the patterns of the school, and trying to blend in in the process.

But right now it was hard to tell what had Rip angrier; the fact that Courtney had failed her history test, or that the teacher wanted a conference with her parents over the low grade.

"Seriously," Courtney agreed but Rip's glare didn't lessen; in fact it may even have intensified.

"I do not care about your anyone else's opinion on the teacher, what I care about is the problem that we are now facing." He scolded and then, as if on cue, Sara walked in on the conversation.

"What happened?" She asked curiously and so Rip turned to answer her, but upon laying eyes on her the wheels started spinning in his head.

"I never noticed how alike you and Miss Whitmore appear, Miss Lance." He said and so Sara raised her eyebrow at him. While it's true that she and Courtney are both blonde with blue eyes and fair skin, the resemblance pretty much ends there. Sara has more freckles than Courtney, is obviously older, and is an inch or two shorter.

"Um…" She trailed off, really having no idea how to respond to Rip.

"In fact, I believe you may be able to pass for her mother." He said, naturally Sara's eyes went wide at the comment. She finally looked past Rip and to Courtney, who looked as though she wanted nothing more than to disappear, and then to Jax who looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. She then looked back at Rip, who was meeting her gaze expectantly.

"You do realize I'm only fifteen years older than her?" She asked but his face hardly faltered. Yes Sara was just barely old enough to plausibly be Courtney's mother, but she was old enough. Realizing that Rip already had his mind made up about this, Sara directed her eye back to Courtney. "What did you do?" She demanded.

"Miss Whitmore," Rip began, cutting Courtney off before she could even try and defend herself. "Has failed her first history exam and her teacher has requested a meeting with one of her parents." He continued and despite the circumstances Sara couldn't help but chuckle.

"Seriously?" She asked, suddenly very amused. "You failed a history test? You're a time traveler!" She mocked.

"Exactly," Courtney finally defended, "Turns out the books have different facts than what actually happened." She claimed but Rip ignored her and turned to Sara.

"Yes so you will be going down to the school at three o'clock tomorrow to meet with her teacher. We're only going to be here for a few more days so you can say whatever you need to satisfy her. Just try not to cause any damage to the timeline." Rip explained and Sara smirked.

"In our own present?" She asked, knowing that this was where the team had the most leeway with their actions. "Please, not even this crew could manage that." She assured him before taking her leave; Rip most likely doubting her words.  
.  
.  
.

"You have to do what tomorrow?" Leonard questioned, he and Sara were currently lying in bed and he had asked her how she would feel about a quick trip to Central City in the morning, as there were currently right next-door in Keystone, and she had responded by telling him about her last minute mission.

"You heard me," she chuckled in response, "I have to go to a parent teacher conference because Courtney failed her history test."

"So… we have a kid now?" He joked and with a laugh Sara playfully smacked him in the chest.

"Yeah, our time-traveling daughter failed her HISTORY test." She stressed but Len only shrugged.

"Half the places she's been are altered timelines, it's not her fault the test didn't specify what timeline we're currently in." He defended and Sara laughed.

"I'll be sure to tell that to the teacher," she mocked, "Now go to sleep." She said, rolling over and facing away from her boyfriend as if to prove the point that this conversation was over. She could feel him rolling his eyes, but eventually he too rolled over and they both drifted off to sleep, neither of them pointing out that, albeit jokingly, they had just acknowledged a child between them.  
.  
.  
.

The next afternoon found Sara at Keystone high school. She approached the building to find it locked, which she thought was odd. But then again, she had heard hat high schools across the country had cracked down a lot on safety since she had been a student, so maybe it wasn't that odd. Pressing her face to the door she could see a secretary siting at a desk, meeting her stare dead on but yet acting like she didn't see her. Only when Sara began knocking on the door did the woman get up and come open it, however she remained planted firmly in the doorway, practically forcing Sara to remain out in the cold of the January afternoon.

"Can I help you?" She asked in a cold and nasally voice, her glasses down on the tip of her nose and eyes peering over their rims.

"I'm here for a parent teacher conference with my daughter's history teacher," Sara replied, though she said it more like a question than an answer. The secretary looked her over once and then twice, whether she was trying to determine her age or if she could be carrying weapons Sara had no idea. But regardless she finally stepped aside and allowed the blonde inside.

"You have to sign in at the office," she informed her in the same rude voice; as if this was something Sara should've somehow already done.

"Ok, can you tell me where that is?" She asked, regretting it when the woman responded by rolling her eyes at her apparent ignorance.

"Just around the corner," she replied uncaringly and so with a nod and a fake smile Sara headed off in the direction, feeling the woman's eyes burning holes in her back the entire time.

The office wasn't nearly as bad as the front door, though locating Courtney's classroom was another story entirely. She walked all over the school, but eventually she did find the classroom. She took a moment outside the doorway to brush some loose hair out of her face and compose herself, unaware if the teacher inside would be better or worse than the secretary.

The answer turned out to be a little bit of both.

The teacher wasn't worse in that she was annoying or rude, no she was a very nice person, but the worse part was…

"Sara?" The woman asked in surprise.

That was the worse part, Sara knew this woman.

"Sara Lance?" She asked again, eyes wide as though she had seen ghost, of course she might have thought she had.

"Anna?" Sara blurted in equal shock, "You're Ms. Green?" She continued to question the woman as she approached, not that she believed she wasn't. Green was her maiden name, but it's also a common last name and so she never even thought that Courtney's unfair teacher all the way out in Keystone could possibly be one of her old friends from high school.

But Anna nodded, still looking rather stunned. "I thought you were dead?" She asked and Sara shrugged as she met her halfway into the room.

"I thought you wanted to be a psychiatrist?" She asked and for the first time her old friend gave her a smile, before confusion took over her features.

"Wait…?" She trailed off skeptically, "You're Courtney's mother?" She asked and Sara nodded.

"Stepmother," she decided to say, sure she had been selected for this meeting because Rip believed she looked enough like Courtney and was just old enough to pass as her mother, but none of that matters once the teacher turns out to be someone Sara saw on a daily basis back during the time she supposedly would've been pregnant.

Ms. Green nodded but Sara didn't miss the way her old friend glanced down at her hand, making the blonde grateful she had opted to wear her wedding ring to the meeting to avoid a harsh teacher judging her for being a single parent.  
.  
.  
.

"I can't believe this!" Courtney exclaimed as she flopped down on her bed with a huff. Sara had returned from her parent teacher conference about an hour ago and teasingly scolded her youngest teammate for not informing her that the homecoming game was a family event by tradition.

Rip, however, overheard this and decided that made getting more of the team near the school in order to grab the trophy all the easier.

"What's the big deal?" Jax questioned from his position on the floor, "The more help we have the better chances at not getting caught." He rationalized but Courtney merely rolled her eyes in annoyance before chucking a pillow at his head.

"You're missing the point," she scolded, "This was supposed to be our mission, but now suddenly we can't handle it and Rip's sending the adults in to babysit us." She whined; had she not been lying flat on her back she might have seen the incredulous look Jax was fixing her with.

"What?" He asked,

"You heard me," she all but snapped as she sat up. "We're just kids to them, kids who need to be watched." She explained but Jax shook his head disbelievingly.

"Man, you don't know what you're talking about." He said, "We're just as much a part of this team as any of them, and we are a team. We help each other." He explained but Courtney seemed far from convinced.

"I've been on a team of adults," she reminded him, "They sent me here because they didn't want to babysit me in the field anymore." She excused but Jax didn't really buy it. He had fought on the mission that led to Courtney's recruitment, and while they hadn't spent an ample amount of time with her team he did know that their reasons for sending her here aren't exactly what she apparently believes.

They asked her to go with the team actually because they were aware she felt this way about them. She wasn't going to come into her own on that team, not with her stepfather as her partner and constantly breathing down her neck. She needed to be on a team where she felt free to make her own choices, and now, Jax could see that it was all coming into question.

"Or maybe they didn't think you needed a babysitter anymore." He suggested but she only huffed. "I'm serious," he continued, "This team isn't exactly the JSA, we're not some well oiled machine. Our chain of command is all tangled up and not even Stein plans on being here for the rest of his life, sooner or later we're each going home, so that doesn't give us the time to care about a difference in age. We're just watching each others backs." He said and Courtney nodded, looking like she understood and was feeling guilty about having accused Rip and the others of trying to belittle her and Jax.

But that wasn't the guilt she felt.

Jax mentioned the JSA, because as far as he's concerned that's where she's from. When she was recruited she had been with her stepfather and a small squad of other heroes on a mission through time. These other heroes were strangers to most of the team, all except for Rip. He knows the truth, but to protect the timeline she has to hide the truth about her first team from the Waverider crew, because it's their future.

The team knows she's from July of 2019, but what they don't know is that the JSA slowly dissipated and broke up way back in the 60's. They don't know that in August of 2018 the JLA will be founded and that was the team Courtney was just being brought onto when they instead decided to send her with Rip hunter's team. When she asked they told her that someone who doesn't know the original team of Legends in 2019 needed to go, to make sure that the threat they were about to face doesn't succeed with their plans. But now she was starting to think all that might just be a load of bull as thus far they hadn't so much as encountered this supposed enemy and she was now, once again, being treated like a child.


	2. The Kidnappings

"Do I look like a mom?" Sara questioned as she finished getting ready for the football game, Leonard rolling his eyes from where he sat on the edge of the bed.

"Is that a question you actually want me to answer?" He replied with his usual hint of teasing in his voice, Sara only smirked in response before she continued to apply her make-up.

To be honest, Len wasn't entirely sure how to answer her question. She was wearing a pair of black boots and dark blue skinny jeans. She had a form fitting long sleeved black shirt and a yellow knit scarf. In his opinion, she did in fact look like she could be a mother. She looked nothing like his own, or what he could remember of her that is, but maybe one of those PTA mothers who was always volunteering for the school events and making brownies for the bake sales and things like that. He'd always had mixed feelings about women like that. As a child he'd wanted nothing more than for his own mother to maybe take a page or two out of their books, but as an adult he had found their lives to be almost pitiful. But Sara, she wasn't the type of mother who would be living through her kid. She would be the type to somehow find a way to meet both worlds perfectly, to always be around for her child, at just about every school function, and still kick ass at night as the White Canary.

Leonard soon found himself shaking his head, he was thinking far too seriously on what was once a joking train of thought. They were wearing their rings again tonight, mostly in case they ran into Sara's old friend, but it was the first time in months and Leonard didn't want to admit that he had missed the small circle on his finger.

Sara didn't want to admit it either.

As she stood before her mirror finishing with her make-up, she couldn't help but notice the way the small diamond on her left hand occasionally caught the light in the room. She and Leonard are very much still together, and still married beyond the year 2018, but she was beginning to miss the days before feelings complicated the whole thing. Maybe wearing her ring again wouldn't be such a big deal now, or maybe after all the fuss she made over it it would be an even bigger deal.

It didn't matter; she didn't have time to worry about it right now.

"Come on," she said to Leonard, unaware that it wasn't just herself the words were pulling back to earth. "We've got a football game to get to."  
.  
.  
.

"Do you ever miss it?" Courtney questioned as she came and stood beside Jax. They had made it to the game and so the plan was to hang around until the end of the first quarter, by that time they would be sure that there was no lingering coach or anyone left in the school.

Waiting out the first quarter left Courtney with about fifteen minutes to kill and so she did the first thing that any kid at a football game with her parents would do; she ditched them to go hang out with her friends.

"Football?" Jax questioned, taking his focus off the game and turning to his friend to see her nod. "Sometimes," he admitted, "I use to miss it a lot more."

"What changed?" She asked and Jax smirked.

"I found a new team."  
.  
.  
.

"So what do you think?" Len asked Sara as the two of them watched Jax and Courtney from where they were sitting in the bleachers.

"I say definitely within the next three months," Sara said,

"Three months Canary?" Len questioned, "Give them some credit, they'll be together in less than two months." He bet but Sara shook her head.

"They might have a fling by that time," she admitted, "But keep in mind that Courtney is from a few years in the future, and that might hold them back." She reminded and he had to nod his agreement to that.

"There they go," he said, nodding towards the kids just as they headed off towards the school right before the end of the quarter.

"Good, now give them a few minutes to get away and then we'll go looking for our daughter." Sara recapped the plan and Len nodded.

"You go to a lot of these in high school?" He found himself asking, although he wasn't really sure why.

"Sort of," Sara replied with a shrug, "I came but I never paid any attention, I was always too busy hanging out under the bleachers and getting high." She beamed and Len found himself chuckling, somehow that answer didn't surprise him.

"What about you?" She asked,

"One or two," he admitted, "Couldn't go to too many because I was usually either in Juvie, about to land myself in Juvie, or trying to keep Lewis away from my sister, but I made it to a few." He admitted and Sara hummed in acknowledgment. That was one thing he did like about her, she never judged him. She didn't pity him, didn't think any less of him, she just accepts him.

"Come on," she finally said, getting up from her seat and waiting for Len to join her. "We should go hunt down the kids," she teased and Len smirked, but they had just barely gotten off the bleachers when they bumped into a woman about Sara's age with a bright smile on her face.

"Sara!" The woman exclaimed, suddenly Leonard knew exactly who she was.

"Anna, hi." Sara said with fake interest, the two of them really needed to be on their way.

"Hi, I'm so glad you decided to come." She said and Sara smiled.

"Courtney sure isn't, we really need to go find her." She said and thankfully Anna seemed to get the memo.

"Ok, well it was nice to see you again, and nice to meet you… um…" She trailed off; eye Len and hoping that he would take the hint, which he did of course.

"Leonard," He introduced, holding out a hand for his supposed daughter's teacher to shake. "I apologize for not being able to make it to the conference the other day, but I promise you that Courtney's grades won't be slipping anymore." He said and Anna smiled at that.

"Thank you," she said, releasing his hand. "I should probably let you go find your daughter."

"It's nothing personal Anna, it's just that we saw her sneaking off with a boy." She explained with a wink, Len already heading away as though dragging his teenage daughter away from an ill-intending boy were at the front of his mind.  
.  
.  
.

"What do you mean they're gone?" Rip demanded into his comm. after receiving a transmission from Sara.

"We've circled the school three times and tried both they're comms., we got nothing but static on the other end, something happened to them." She insisted over the line, back on her end she and Snart were making a fourth trip around the large building but still finding no sign of the teenagers.

At first they had just been hoping that the two thought they had more time than they did and decided to have a little fun, but after all this circling and searching they should've found them by now, it's not like there were very many places for them to hide in the first place.

Rip sighed over the other end, trying to determine the best course of action.

"Alright," he finally muttered, "Just grab the trophy and get back here, we'll try to track them down."

"One problem Rip," Len chimed in, peering through the window of the school and focused on the trophy case that Jax and Courtney had been casing ever since this assignment began. "The trophy's gone."  
.  
.  
.

"You couldn't have waited for backup?" Jax all but scolded Courtney as the two them sat in what they were guessing was the brig of a time ship, considering it looked a lot like the Waverider's.

"We got the trophy didn't we?" Courtney countered and Jax rolled his eyes.

"Yeah sure, except someone took it from us, knocked us both out, and now we're on our way to god knows when or where!" He exclaimed, upon hearing his furious words Courtney's eyes became downcast as she looked away in shame of her actions.

"Sorry," she murmured but Jax only huffed.

"I should've known you were still hung up on that whole adults helping us thing," he muttered to himself.

"Well I don't understand how you're not!" She snapped suddenly, lifting her head and meeting Jax's eyes. "We didn't need Leonard and Sara to help us steal the trophy-"

"Really?" Jax cut her off, "Because you went and tried to do it without them, and now we're in a cell." He continued

"Where we probably would've ended up even with the help of the adults." Courtney retorted but Jax only huffed.

"I like the odds of four on who knows how many a lot better than two." He grumbled and after that it was silent for a good few minutes.

"So what do you think?" Courtney finally asked, breaking the silence. "Where do you think they're taking us?" She clarified but Jax could only shrug.

"I don't know," he admitted and just then the door into the room around them opened up, revealing that as of right now they were no longer the only prisoners on the ship.  
.  
.  
.

"Why would someone take Jax and Courtney?" Kendra demanded,

"Same reason someone would take any one of us, to pick fight." Mick replied, speaking the words that just about everyone else was thinking.

"Maybe this isn't what we think," Ray suggested, the hopeful gleam in his eyes just as bright as ever. "Maybe they got caught trying to break into the school."

"Except a teacher's first action would've been to call their parents, and when we faked their school forms we put Stein down as a contact for Jax and Rip for Courtney, and unless they're keeping quiet nobody's gotten a phone call." Sara said, denouncing his theory.

"Any luck on tracking them, Gideon?" Rip asked of the AI, quickly growing impatient with the team's lack of knowledge on the whereabouts of the their youngest members.

"I apologize captain, but I have been unable to determine the locations of both Mr. Jackson and Ms. Whitmore." The robotic chime of a voice announced, although even it sounded to be undercut by just a hint of worry.

Rip sighed in disappointment; they couldn't afford to just wait around for a clue to present itself. But they didn't have to wait long, because right at that moment Sara's phone began ringing. Now that fact in itself was strange, because their cell phones only work when they're in their own time period, and they hadn't told anyone they were stopping by. Even stranger was that it was Sara of all people, as she's disappeared so many times throughout her life that the idea of someone calling her on a limb is something that must mean an absolute emergency, so who could be on the other end of that call?  
.  
.  
.

"Let me get this straight," Felicity began after Oliver had returned with Rene and Curtis from the two's first official night in the field as Wild Dog and Mr. Terrific. "On the first night out, you lost Artemis?" She demanded, using Evelyn's codename simply because from what she had heard over the link it didn't sound like the kidnapper had been after Evelyn Sharp, but instead after a vigilante.

"We're getting her back," Ollie stated and Felicity could only scoff.

"How?" she demanded and so Oliver held up a notecard with a frighteningly familiar phone number scribbled on it.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, "But I'm about to find out."  
.  
.  
.

Meanwhile, in Central City, Iris was in the midst of a full-blown panic. Wally hadn't come home from school today, and while it isn't unusual for him to stay on campus right up until dinnertime and sometimes even later, it was now nearing midnight and he usually called by now if he wasn't coming home. Even when he didn't call, he did normally answer his phone. But this was the fourth time Iris had been sent to voicemail in the past half hour and it was only serving to fuel her anxiety. Her dad wasn't taking it much better, having already taken to patrolling around the city in his car and looking for Wally somewhere. The drive around was useless of course, as Barry had already sped around the city twice and confirmed that he didn't see Wally anywhere. But Joe insisted that he go out and search for his son on his own, and Iris and Barry let him, hoping that somehow he would turn up with different results.

Just then Iris jumped when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket, hoping that it was her brother or her father calling to let her know that all is well. It was Barry, and so she was almost as quick as the scarlet speedster himself in pressing the phone to her ear.

"Anything?" She asked hopefully,

"Don't know…" Barry trailed off in a clearly confused voice on the other end.

"What do you mean 'don't know'?" Iris demanded and she could hear him hesitating on the other end, thinking through whatever he was going to say next very carefully.

"I think it might be best if you came down to S.T.A.R. Labs," he finally said,

"Why? Barry what's going on?" Iris's patients were wearing very thin by this point; she was walking the borderline of shouting and she didn't really care.

"I'm not sure," Barry admitted; she could still hear the hesitance in his voice as he thought over what he was going to say next. "But Wally isn't the only one missing."  
.  
.  
.

To put things bluntly, Wally had no idea what was going on. One minute he was waiting for the bus to head off of the school campus, and the next his was sitting in some kind of glass box with three other kids around his age. There were two girls and one boy, and so far the boy appeared to be the most friendly. One of the girls was a blonde, dressed in dark blue jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. The other girl was the one who really caught his eye, sitting over in the far corner in forest green Kevlar pants and matching jacket with the hood pulled over her head, at first he thought she was going to try and kill him. She had looked up when he was first thrown in, but she'd since lost interest and resigned herself silently to watch him and the other two prisoners talk.

The boy, Jax he said his name was, explained to Wally that the four of them had been taken hostage for reasons none of them knew. Through comparing stories, however, they were able to determine that whatever is in store for them it can't be good. Wally remembered nothing except for a spark of lightning, like the Flash had brought him here. But that couldn't be right, Barry would never trap him like this. Jax then explained that he had heard of a man called the Reverse Flash, but he thought he was dead. It was then that the blonde girl, Courtney, decided to weigh in on the conversation. Wally was still processing most of it, but she mentioned something about time travel and that thanks to it, it was possible for the Reverse Flash to have brought him here. She and Jax had no memories of their own abduction, just that they had been trying to get some time sensitive object out of the wrong place and woken up in the cell without the object. The masked girl, Artemis as she called herself, had the most memory. She was even able to tell them who had taken her; a man named Malcolm Merlin. The name meant nothing to Wally, but clearly it meant something to his three cellmates, and that something was trouble.


	3. Rescue Mission (Part 1)

Jax hadn't noticed how accustomed he had grown to time travel until the ship that he was currently trapped on took off. He had never time jumped without restraints before and after this he has no plans on ever doing it again. Each of the four prisoners had tried wedging themselves into a corner of the cell to minimize the effect of the jump but it hardly did any good. The four of them all ended up heaped into one big pile in the center of the cell, all with varying degrees of side effects from the jump. Jax and Courtney had expected this of course, and braced themselves for the pounding headaches and unsettling nausea. Wally and Artemis, however, had no idea what was happening or what the effects could be and so when they landed the reactions were unpleasant to say the least.

"I'm blind!" Artemis shrieked; feeling all around her while Wally tried to focus on the scene around him.

"WHAT?" He shouted, making everyone else cover their ears.

"Relax, its just side effects of time travel." Jax assured the two but neither of them heard, Wally because he had lost his hearing and Artemis because she was growing hysterical.

"WHAT?" Wally shouted again but Jax ignored him.

"What are you talking about?" Artemis nearly cried, still feeling wildly around her and nearly smacking all three of her cellmates in the process.

"Evelyn, Evelyn calm down." Courtney ordered, grabbing the brunette's wrists, but that only sent her further into her panic.

"How, how do you know my name?" She demanded, one of the first lessons Oliver had drilled into her was the importance of keeping her identity a secret, and she thought she had been doing a good job of it.

"Courtney's from the future, and besides you can trust us." Jax assured the frightened girl just as her sight started to return to her.

"She's from where?" Wally asked, his hearing also beginning to come back.

"The future," Courtney repeated for him, "Although not very far, about two years."

"So in two years, have we met?" Evelyn asked, now that she could see again and was starting to get some answers she was a lot less panicked.

"Once," Courtney admitted, "I'm still new to this whole hero thing and we only met once before I was sent back in time." She explained, the information both coming as both a surprise and not a surprise to Jax. Courtney almost never talks about her life before she joined the Legends, and while it didn't come as a shock to Jax that she'd met Evelyn at some point it also made him wonder how many of their future counterparts she knew.

"So where are we?" Wally questioned,

"The prison of a time machine," Jax answered, ignoring the looks of shock from his cellmates who were just now finding out about time travel. "We're probably being used as bait." He grumbled,

"Bait for who?" Wally questioned,

"Who do you think?" Evelyn questioned sarcastically, "Malcolm took me right out from under Green Arrow's nose." She continued, choosing to use Oliver's if only because she felt that he would somehow find out if she didn't.

"We know who he is too," Courtney supplied, "But you're probably right, Jax and I were taken from where we were supposed to meet two of our teammates."

"What about me?" Wally asked, "I was waiting for the bus before they grabbed me." He explained and while Courtney appeared to be rather confused by this no one commented on it.

"She works with Green Arrow, we work with the Legends, so I'm gonna take a guess and say that you work with Barry?" Jax asked, choosing to use the scarlet speedster's real name in order to show Wally that he could be trusted. Sure enough the other boy nodded, and Jax let out a sigh. "Then sooner or later he'll know." He said, "Whatever's going on here it's got to be big, and it's got to be a trap." He said, his fear for the situation only growing by the minute.

"You think they'll come?" Evelyn asked and as much as he didn't want to, Jax nodded.

"They'll come," he confirmed, knowing full well that none of the teams would just let one or two of their own be taken away without doing anything about it.  
.  
.  
.

Boy was Jax right.

It's not like this is the first kidnapping for any of the three teams, but it is the first to happen on a major scale. After Malcolm took Evelyn and left Oliver with a notecard that contained Sara's phone number he had called and only been a little surprised when she actually answered. After learning that they too had lost team members only a few hours earlier, and Evelyn having personal no connection to either Jax or Courtney, realized that they might not be the only ones. On a hunch they called Barry to warn him that his team may be next, only to discover that it was too late and they were already searching for Wally in Central City. The Waverider crew then flew to Star City and picked up team Arrow to save on time before they all met at S.T.A.R. Labs. Rip still had Gideon running a trace on Jax and Courtney's comms back on the Waverider, but in the meantime the three teams were comparing notes.

Oliver was able to tell them that it was Malcolm Merlyn who took Artemis, and while they were all able to agree that such a thing couldn't mean anything good for the other missing teens, Leonard took notice of how Sara in particular tensed up at the news. He also noticed that she volunteered to head back to the Waverider, parked in the parking lot of the labs and camouflaged, to check Gideon's status on tracking the missing Legends by comm. So about two minutes after she was gone he slipped out as well, perfectly aware that at least his sister and Mick noticed but not really caring.

He followed his girlfriend silently out of the building and through the parking lot; purposely not catching up to her until after she was on the Waverider and Gideon had already denied having found their missing teammates. He watched from around the corner as she sighed and hung her head low with a groan of defeat and frustration.

"You've looked better," he remarked, entering the bridge and making Sara jump and spin around, one hand flying to her hip as if she were going for a weapon, knowing her she probably did have one.

"You should know by now not to sneak up on me," she commented after she realized that it was only him, he simply shrugged and approached her.

"So who's Malcolm Merlyn?" He asked casually, "And why are you so afraid of him?"

"Snart-"

"Lance," he cut her off, despite the warning tone in her voice he wasn't going to let her keep whatever this is to herself, not without putting up a fight anyway.

She took a minute, a tremble in her stern and yet scared appearance letting him know that she was working up the courage to tell him, and so he was patient.

"He killed me," she finally deadpanned; Leonard felt his own breath catch in his throat upon hearing that. Sara had never discussed her death extensively, not even with him. All he knew was that her friend Thea had pulled the arrows while under the influence of some drugs. He knew about the pit, about the bloodlust, about the haze of time she had lived without a soul. But she never mentioned who had drugged her friend, or that he was the one she was really afraid of. "Malcolm Merlyn drugged his own daughter and forced her to kill me just to pick a fight-"

"Do you think he'll kill you again?" Len interrupted and for a moment Sara could only look shocked, although in hindsight she really shouldn't have been surprised that it was her life Leonard thought she was fearful for.

"No," she finally answered, "No he killed me out of rebellion, he wanted to be Ra's."

"And killing one of the top assassins in the league was the way to get there?" Leonard asked skeptically and even Sara couldn't help scoff at how absurd it sounded when put that way.

"Merlyn's plans have never been known for making sense at first," she admitted before her face became serious again. "But he does always have a plan, and he's willing to do anything for power. If he's going after all three teams then whatever he's got planned has to be huge."

"And I bet he's not working alone," Len added and Sara thought on the theory before nodding.

"Probably not," she admitted and before she could've said anything more, Gideon brought up a holographic map at the main control table.

"I have located Mr. Jackson and Ms. Whitmore," she announced.

"Where are they?" Leonard demanded, knowing already that he wasn't going to like the answer.  
.  
.  
.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Rip exclaimed when Sara and Leonard returned from the Waverider and told the others what Gideon had discovered.

"Based on that reaction, I take it they're in trouble." Len said, although he and Sara had asked Gideon for details on the location and therefor he already knew that their missing friends were very much in trouble.

"Trouble would be putting it lightly Mr. Snart." Rip declared,

"Wait, I've heard of that place." Barry said, ever since Sara and his former nemesis had announced that the teenagers were being held at the very edge of the Phantom Zone, he'd been trying to remember where he had heard that term before, and finally it came to him. "When I was trying to run faster so I could beat Zoom I accidently ran right into Earth-3-"

"You what?" Cisco asked, in all the chaos with Zoom, Barry had never actually gotten around to telling anybody about his trip to another alternate dimension.

"Maybe four, I don't know, I just know I skipped over two." The speedster tried to hastily explain.

"Dude how fast were you running?" Cisco demanded but this time Barry chose to ignore him completely.

"There was this girl Kara, she said she had been frozen in the Phantom Zone?" He asked it more than he said it, but Rip nodded all the same.

"If she was than I cannot imagine how she managed to get out," he said, "The Phantom Zone exists outside of both time and space, anything that goes in becomes frozen in stasis. Based on Gideon's coordinates, Jax, Courtney, Evelyn, and Wally are being held at the very edge of the zone, meaning that Mr. Merlyn could drop them in at any time." He warned, but something about this wasn't adding up for those who had dealt with Merlyn before.

"Where is this place?" Oliver questioned,

"Outer space," Rip confirmed,

"Like off of planet Earth outer space?" Felicity questioned and Rip nodded, "I'm sorry but no, just no. Malcolm Merlyn is without a doubt one of the most resourceful people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, but I can't imagine where even he would get a spaceship." She babbled out, becoming the third one out of the group to realize that Merlyn most likely was not in this alone.

"So most likely we're flying right into a trap." Oliver deadpanned when it became apparent that nobody else was going to weigh in on the matter. Rip only nodded in confirmation.

"Most likely," he agreed and everyone looked to be very uneasy. None of them liked the prospect of heading into battle with no idea as to how many people they would be up against, especially when the one enemy they do have information on is Malcolm Merlyn. But with the lives of four of their own on the line, they didn't exactly have much of a choice.  
.  
.  
.

"You'd think someone would've come in here to gloat by now," Evelyn mused as she and her three new friends continued sitting like the bait that they were. "There has got to be a way out of here." She continued with a groan.

"Just rescue," Jax muttered, he had been over the security in the brig of the Waverider enough times to know that there was no way out of there and, therefor, no way out of here from the inside.

"Well rescue better come soon, because I have to pee!" Courtney whined, Evelyn rolled her eyes but aside from that nobody acknowledged the blondes complaints. "Can't you faze out of here?" She continued, turning her, and everyone else's, attention onto Wally.

"What?" He asked in complete confusion, "No, how would, what?" He questioned again, trying and failing to make sense of Courtney's comment.

Courtney, on the other hand, realized her mistake and internally started to panic.

"Uh… Nothing." She quickly stammered out but everyone else was easily able to tell that it was a cover up. "Look, I just didn't realize that I'd been sent back to before you got your powers ok." She defended casually, although to the claim was anything but casual.

"Powers?" Wally questioned, his expression looking like he was torn between confusion and pure glee. "Wait so, in the future, I have superpowers?" He asked and Courtney rolled her eyes.

"Yes," she huffed, "It's probably not the best thing for me to be telling you this though," she all but snapped and Wally nodded, though he still looked to be very curious about the possibility of him one day, possibly one day soon, acquiring powers.

Still, even if he had tried to continue the discussion it wouldn't have happened, because the door to the room, which contained their cell, opened up. Now after comparing notes and swapping kidnapping stories the four teenagers had been expecting either Malcolm Merlyn or Eobard Thawne to enter the room, but instead they were greeted by a third kidnapper, Damian Darhk.

"Hello there," he greeted in a friendly and yet rather threatening voice, "Sorry to keep you all waiting for so long but it took us some time to reach our destination."

"And where exactly is our destination?" Jax questioned, crossing his arms as he turned to face their captor who cracked a wry grin.

"Think of it as a new home, for you and your teams."  
.  
.  
.

With three teams working together, they aren't as stupid as Malcolm seems to think. They elected to send only a select few to the edge of the Phantom Zone as rescue for their missing friends, while everyone else remained at S.T.A.R. as a sort of ground control for the mission. Those selected to go on the Waverider were Rip, Oliver, Barry, Ray, Stein, Caitlin, Felicity, Mick, and Sara.

Snart, of course, did not like the idea of Sara going on this mission. He trusts her, but the idea of his girlfriend setting off to fight the man who successfully killed her two years ago did not sit well with him. He tried getting on the Waverider, trading seats with anybody, but Rip just wasn't having it. He needed to go because he's the captain, Oliver and Sara due to their past experiences with Merlyn, Barry for his speed, and Stein because he's starting to feel the effects of being separated from his partner and so the sooner they're reunited the better things will be for everyone. Ray because he's the only one who can survive deep space outside of the ship, Caitlin in case anyone ended up seriously hurt because Gideon, obviously, has no hands. Felicity needed to go in order to monitor from the ship while Cisco did the same from the ground, and finally Mick simply for his fight record. Len tried arguing that he packs just as big a punch as Mick and, no offense to his partner, but is also less likely to accidently put a teammate in danger. But after spending so many lifetimes with the Time Masters Mick knows a time ship better than even Rip, and it was knowledge such as that that could mean the difference between success and failure on this particular mission.

So he was out of luck; condemned to stay on the ground and watch as his girlfriend, hell his wife, walked off to face the very man who put her six feet under once already, and God only knows who else.

Sara, naturally, sensed that Leonard was worried and so when they were in the final stages of planning she pulled him out into the hall.

"I'll be fine," she immediately promised him, knowing better than to ask him whether or not he's ok when the answer would so clearly be "no".

Len huffed out a sigh as he grabbed her hand, his thumb brushing against the diamond of her ring just before he glanced down at it. In the midst of all this chaos, he had nearly forgotten that they had been using the rings to help sell their cover story. She glanced down too, for a moment, before standing on her toes to kiss him with one hand cupping his cheek while he still held the other. He barely kissed back, not wanting this to feel any more like a goodbye than it already did.

Sara sighed upon pulling away, knowing that there wasn't anything she could do to ease Len's mind until this mission was over and she was back in his arms. They'd already talk about Malcolm, and she knew that he wasn't after her specifically this time. But the fear was still there, because although indirectly, this man HAS beaten her before.

"I'll be fine," she promised again before turning to head back to the group.

"I know," Len's voice finally mumbled from behind her, when she turned around he was finally meeting her gaze.

He took a step towards her, and then another, and then half of one more so that it would've been almost too easy for him to close the gap between them. So he did. Gently, he cupped her chin with his thumb and his forefinger and guided her into meeting his lips. This kiss wasn't reassuring, as she had tried to make hers; instead it conveyed a request. He was pleading with her to come back to him, and she knew that she was agreeing. Truth be told she was scared for this mission, but she knew that she would come back and when she did she and Leonard could go back to their room and fall asleep in each other's arms.


	4. Rescue Mission (Part 2)

The journey to the edge of the Phantom Zone went about as well as one might expect. Those on the Waverider who are used to time travel, which was a little more than half of them, gritted their teeth and tried willing away their headaches as normal while the other four reacted a bit more extremely to the side effects. Oliver and Barry handled it the best, with Barry's powers taking some of the edge off and Oliver's sheer stubbornness refusing to allow him more than a pained gasp as his head pounded and his hearing left him. Caitlin was groaning from the pain in her head and slightly alarmed by the loss of her vision, and Felicity was quick to bend over and heave her lunch onto the floor.

"Man, you guys go through that every day?" Caitlin asked once her sight slowly started to return.

"Just about," Mick replied, disengaging the restraints on his seat and looking away from the mess that Felicity was making.

"Kind of depends what you mean by every day," Ray piped up before turning to Felicity. "Are you ok?"

"Just fine," Felicity sarcastically replied as she finally finished vomiting, "You know I was just lunched into outer space so I figured, hey! Why not just throw up?" She mocked and only afterwards did what she had just said appear to dawn on her. "Oh my God, we're in outer space." She exclaimed in her usual tone of excitement mixed with complete disbelief.

"Thank you captain obvious," Sara mocked as she too stood from her seat and made her way over to the main window of the bridge. "I'm guessing that's their ship?" She asked, nodding towards the glass through which she could see a ship nearly identical to the Waverider. It was completely still, docked just in front of something that almost looked like a giant pool of purple and blue clouds floating amidst the perpetual blackness of their never ending surroundings.

"Yes," Rip confirmed, but his eyes were locked onto the clouds. "And that is the Phantom Zone."

Everyone was silent for a minute, taking in the sight before them with Rip's warnings about what would happen if they were to enter the zone echoing in their minds.

"So what's the plan?" Mick finally broke the silence with the inevitable question. Sure they all knew the plan was to get onto Merlyn's ship and get their friends, but with so little to go on they hadn't exactly been able to figure out how they were going to go about that.

"Well considering they obviously stole a time ship, we're going to use Gideon's communication system in order to reach them." Rip declared as he headed over to the main control table.

"You mean we're going to call them?" Sara questioned and so Rip looked up to meet her quizzical expression with an almost uncertain one of his own.

"Hopefully they're in the bargaining mood."  
.  
.  
.

"That's your plan?!" Cisco exclaimed when he got into contact with Felicity and she told him what Rip was about to do.

"What are they doing?" Joe West demanded to know, hovering right over Cisco's shoulder as if doing so would allow him to hear Felicity's voice through Cisco's earpiece.

"They're going to call Merlyn's ship and ask nicely," Cisco huffed, clearly as concerned as anyone about such a plan actually working.

"What?" Joe demanded, unable to believe what he had just heard.

For the record, Len couldn't believe it either. When he had recruited the team Rip's first instinct was to resort to kidnapping and later on lying. But now that it came to rescuing four of their own, he was suddenly open to negotiation.

"Hang on!" Cisco shouted, clearly very annoyed with playing the middleman in an argument between Felicity, Joe, and now Iris. They didn't stop of course, only when the young engineer removed his earpiece and managed to connect it to a speaker did they finally stop, the surprise of hearing each other's voices being enough to silence them for a few seconds. "Ok, you're on speaker, go at it." Cisco huffed, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance.

"There's no way to sneak onto a ship in the middle of outer space," Felicity began, now that they could hear her for themselves Iris and Joe refrained from interrupting her, which only appeared to annoy Cisco even more. "They took our friends, they know we're coming so there's no point in trying to get in and out without being seen-"

"So your plan is to walk right into a trap?" Joe interrupted,

"No," Felicity assured him, but the beat of silence was enough for those in S.T.A.R. Labs to picture her running through the plan in her head as she tried to decide whether or not it truly was walking into a trap. "Not exactly, look I think that, for those of us who have dealt with Malcolm before, we can all agree that his biggest weakness is his ego." She began, pausing briefly as though she were waiting for a response before she realized that just about everyone who has dealt with Malcolm before is on that ship with her. "As long as Malcolm thinks he's calling the shots he won't be paying any attention to what's really going on."

"Ok, so what's really going on?" Leonard demanded, now joining in the conversation.

"We don't know yet," Felicity admitted, "Rip says I have to cut the transmission, so they won't know we're still in contact with you guys."

"How did you get elected to go to space instead of me?" Cisco all but whined and they could practically feel Felicity smirking on the other end.

"You drew the short straw," she mocked, reminding him that they had settled the matter by drawing straws. He huffed in annoyance and the transmission was cut, at least for now.

The room was uncomfortably quiet, no one being very comfortable with the prospect of waiting around for a status update on their teammates, both the rescuers and those being rescued. But it was what had to be done, and so one by one they broke off into their own conversations. Leonard took this opportunity to look around the room, and when he noticed his sister heading towards him he abruptly stood and stalked out of the room, knowing there was going to be a 50/50 chance she'd follow him.

But when he got all the way down the hall with still no sound of her footsteps behind him he figured he was good, and he noticed that he wasn't the only one looking to escape the group. Pacing back and forth at the end of the hall was that kid Queen and Felicity had brought with them. He hadn't said much when with the group; in fact Len wasn't all that sure he had said anything at all.

"You alright kid?" He found himself asking; the kid had seen him by now so he had to say something.

"Yeah," The kid replied, lying obviously but Leonard wouldn't call him out on it; he was a little smarter than that.

"I'm glad one of us is," he admitted, of course the kid only looked at him in complete surprise but said nothing, so Len decided that he'd better elaborate. "My wife's up there," he said with a sigh, noticing how the kid's eyes flickered briefly to notice the wedding band that the crook was still wearing. "When it comes to missions we're just teammates, nothing more, and normally that's fine. But she died once, before I met her, and Malcolm Merlyn was the one who killed her." He explained, watching the kid for any sort of reaction and all he got was wide eyes of surprise.

"When you say… she died?" He asked, Rene and Evelyn had only been training with Oliver for about five months now and although they knew prior to tonight that he has allies in the vigilante game, they were unaware of who exactly or what their backgrounds are.

"I mean three arrows buried in her chest, knocking her off the edge of a six story building." The cold-hearted crook replied, eyes refusing to meet Rene's horrified gaze and instead focusing on the wall ahead of him. "Put her in the grave for about a year before her sister dug her up and threw her body into some kind of magic pool, which has been destroyed by now so if he kills her again…" He trailed off but Rene understood.

There was silence between then for a few minutes. The both of them content to just sit in silence in the hallway and vaguely aware of Lisa's head poking around the corner before she decided to return to the group as opposed to approaching her brother.

"I lost my family, in the undertaking." Rene finally admitted once they could no longer hear Lisa's footsteps and were sure she, as well as anyone else, was far out of earshot. Len nodded at the information, but said nothing. He had heard about the unnatural earthquakes that destroyed the Glades of Star City almost five years ago, and waited silently for the kid to continue. "Since then, I've been mostly on my own. But now I spend so much time with the team…" He trailed off, as though he was just now realizing whatever it was he was about to say. "Evelyn's like my little sister, and I watched him take her." He confessed, meeting Leonard's gaze with a pained expression of regret. "I was there, I could've done something. But he hit me with some kind of rope and knocked me down, and she was already out. He took her right out from under me." He confessed, even he hadn't realized how close he had become with his teammates until one of them was gone, possibly never to return.

Len nodded, he could understand that feeling. He didn't want to admit it but he had grown close with his teammates since their initial recruiting. He and Mick, while still partners, have other people to worry about now.

"We were in the middle of a fight," he began, hardly noticing how Rene looked up at him with curiosity in his brown eyes, not unlike the way a little boy would. "This was long before we were together, but that isn't to say I didn't love her at the time, or was at least starting to." He shifted a bit awkwardly upon saying that, try as he might Leonard still was not able to pinpoint exactly when he started to fall for Sara Lance, though he suspected it might have begun all the way back in 1975 when she broke that guys wrist in the bar. In any case, it was a damn long time before either of them admitted their feelings for the other. "We were fighting Savage, the warlord we had initially been recruited to stop. I didn't even see it happen, but one minute Sara was behind me kicking ass, and the next she was in front of me, with Savage holding a knife to her throat." He drawled, his voice taking on a slight hint of anger from even thinking about that moment. "He wanted Rip, and had the man not for once had a plan, I would've handed him over." He admitted, surprising himself even a little bit. He often tried not to think about that day, or what he would've done and who he would've killed in order to get Sara back safely when she was taken right out from under him.  
.  
.  
.

By now the four teenagers in the prison had been there for hours and they were getting rather annoyed. They'd only had that one visit from Darhk and since then it had been quiet, and with no way to tell time (if time was even passing) they were all growing increasingly restless. They had each sought out means of escape, even openly suggested a few, but nothing they could come up with amounted to anything more than wishful thinking.

"I still have to pee," Courtney whined, if only to break the silence.

"Good, maybe if you pee your pants they'll open this door." Evelyn mused, half sarcastically, from where she was sitting slumped in a corner.

Courtney made a disgusted face at her but no comment, though she doubted that their captors would care at all if one of them were to go to the bathroom in their pants.

Suddenly, their cell started shaking as if it could tell its occupants were board out of their minds and it wanted to make them sorry they ever complained. At first it felt like an earthquake, and the teenagers began bracing themselves for another jump.

What came was much worse.

The cell started descending down, as if it was leaving the ship.

"What's going on?" Evelyn panicked,

"I don't know," Jax replied, just as panicked as her if not more so. He knew everything there about the mechanics of a time ship, but he didn't know the brig could do this.

Their fear only intensified as the cell lowered more and more out of the ship, the clear walls allowing the captives inside a clear and unobstructed view of the infinite space below them, including the Phantom Zone.

As the cage lowered, Evelyn felt her heart plunge into her knotted stomach, and she was sure that the others couldn't be much better off. She had never really suffered from a fear of heights, but this was far past any conventional height. This was insane, and although she flinched at the slight contact of a hand brushing against hers she decided to embrace it when she noticed the owner's face. Wally was beside her, every bit as terrified as she was, and probably not even aware of their close proximity until Evelyn had her fingers curled around his. But he too saw the terror on her face and besides, Courtney had both of her arms wound completely around Jax's, so they weren't the only ones bracing for a fall.  
.  
.  
.

"You want them?" Merlyn mocked over the call with crew currently on the Waverider, "Come get them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Hey guys! I just want to clear up the reason Len is calling Rene "kid". So when it was first confirmed that Wild Dog would be joining the team this season it was done at the same time Artemis was confirmed, and i was so pumped about her that i hardly paid any attention to the news of Wild Dog. When the trailers and teasers started coming i couldn't really get a good look at him nor had i bothered looking up who's playing him. What i'm trying to say is that i didn't realize he's around the same age as Oliver and for whatever reason i had it in my head that he was only a year or two older than Evelyn. By the time i realized my mistake this chapter was just about done and since season 5 hasn't premiered yet there's technically nothing canon to follow for him. So for the purpose of this story he is about eighteen or nineteen years old, i'll get him right next time!


	5. Rescue Mission (Part 3)

_"We're going to die." _That was the only thing coursing through Wally's mind as he subconsciously tightened his grip on Evelyn's hand, holding onto her like a lifeline. He was so sure that the floor would open up under them at any moment and they would go plunging into the dark depths of outer space. What was it that he had been taught would happen to a human exposed to the elements of space without protection? Would they simply suffocate? Or had he heard somewhere that they would explode? He had always been a fantastic student in the subject of science, but right now his mind couldn't seem to form a logical thought. All he could think about was his family, how he was never going to see them again. About what Courtney said about his future powers, and how he would never get the chance to use them.__

__Wait… Courtney._ _

__"Hey," he finally spoke up, becoming the first to dare and move. He only turned his head, but it was more movement than the others had attempted since the cage was lowered. "You're from the future, right?" He asked, gaining Courtney's attention as well as Jax's, he already had Evelyn's._ _

__The blonde nodded, still too afraid of an impending drop to speak, but calm enough to listen._ _

__"Did this happen before?" Wally questioned her, but she shook her head._ _

__"No," She managed to get out, "I've never…" she trailed off with her answer, realization dawning on her._ _

__This is what she had been sent back to stop._ _

__They were dealing with the future counterpart of Merlin, which explains where he got the time ship. She had heard rumors during her training, that Malcolm had stolen some files that contained information on the Reverse Flash, and lord knows he already possessed all the information he could need on Damian Darhk. He had stolen a time ship in 2019, no doubt the old one Rip had given to the league for emergencies, and gone to recruit past versions of Darhk and Thawne. This was their plan, to trap the league in the Phantom Zone before they could even form as one._ _

__"Courtney?" Jax questioned, snapping her out of her thoughts and back to their current predicament._ _

__"The others can't get on this ship." She deadpanned fearfully, the pieces of Malcolm's plan falling into place within her mind._ _

__"Why not?" Jax asked, not that he was a particular fan of their friends getting on board a ship belonging to three of their greatest enemies, but Courtney seemed more worried about it than he would've expected her to be._ _

__"Because the second they do, Malcolm's going to plunge it right down into the Phantom Zone." She revealed, the look of horror in her eyes only receiving looks of confusion from the others._ _

__"Come again?" Evelyn questioned when it became obvious that none of the three understood what she meant._ _

__Courtney sighed, knowing that despite her instructions not to reveal anything about the future she was going to have to come clean._ _

__"The Phantom Zone," she repeated, "Otherwise known as the swirly cloud of death directly below us." She began, the others briefly glancing down at the clear floor beneath their feet to get a look at what she was talking about. "Nothing that goes in ever gets out, it's a frozen dimension, meaning that anything that ends up inside, freezes."_ _

__"And you think Merlin will plunge us all in even if he can't get away?" Evelyn asked, her voice taking on a mocking tone that quickly vanished at the serious look on Courtney's face._ _

__"Yes," she deadpanned before sighing, conceding to disobeying her orders. "In August of 2018 a powerful alien army will invade earth, the second in as many years. Your teams will all play a hand in stopping the threat, they will succeed, and decide that with threats only growing larger they need to be more than allies, they need a new team, and the Justice League will be founded."_ _

__"Justice League?" Jax questioned, looking curiously at his friend as he pieced together the puzzle. "But you said-"_ _

__"I lied," she quickly cut him off. "The Justice Society of America disbanded back in the 1960's, and I would appreciate it if nobody told Amaya that." She requested before continuing, "I can't say too much, but I can tell you that the reason I was sent on the mission with Rip is because I'm one of the newest recruits to the league and have no connection to any of it's founding members. I don't know enough to screw anything up, but there was a temporal anomaly threatening the league's formation."_ _

__"And you think this is it?" Wally asked and Courtney nodded._ _

__"Thawne and Darhk are already dead. These are versions of them from their pasts, so if they plunge into the zone it'll only help Merlin."_ _

__"Except you're forgetting that Merlin will freeze too," Jax interrupted but the blonde shook her head._ _

__"He isn't your Merlin, he's mine." She explained, "He came back from my time, and it doesn't matter if he freezes because so long as even half of the founding members of the league do, there will be no league. His present self will be able to pursue whatever power hungry plans he has, and his frozen future self will be nothing more than a sacrificial lamb, like a time remnant." She explained, Wally's eyes widening as he understood the comparison, knowing that it meant the present Merlin would not be affected even if this version of his future self became frozen in the Phantom Zone, even when time caught up with him._ _

__It was then that the sight of the Waverider approaching, so that their teammates could board the enemy ship in a rescue attempt, caught the attention of the teenagers._ _

___"We are in a lot of trouble," Evelyn drawled, summing up the situation perfectly._  
.  
.  
. 

__Meanwhile on the Waverider, the verdict wasn't any different. They knew that their friends, as well as themselves, were all in huge amounts of trouble, but not even Rip understood how much. Sure he knew about Courtney's true assignment, but without the knowledge of the Reverse Flash's involvement as well as Damian Darhk's he had not yet been able to put together to pieces. How Malcolm Merlin got his hands on a time ship, again the ship possessed by the future Justice League being unknown to Rip, didn't sit right with anyone. But they didn't have time to question it; all they did was prepare for battle._ _

__The plan was for Felicity, Caitlin, and Rip to stay behind on the Waverider while Oliver, Barry, Ray, Mick, and Sara headed over to the other ship to rescue their teammates. Stein would also be staying behind on the monitors, but hopefully Jax would be able to get back to the Waverider quickly and merge with him, then the two of them would be able to return to the enemy ship if need be and help in the fight. Barry was also taking Courtney's cosmic staff, her favorite weapon, with him. He may have no clue how to use it but that wasn't the point. The point was for him to speed into the brig and get the cage back into the ship, at which point he could give the staff to Courtney in order to defend herself. Sara tried giving him a knife for Evelyn but Ollie forbade it; claiming that while he had been training Evelyn, as well as Curtis and Rene, to fight with knives, the teenage girl was not yet ready to use one in the field._ _

__"What are you, her dad?" The blonde had mocked her old friend._ _

__"Wouldn't be the biggest shock, I heard you're Courtney's mom." He teased her back and like a child she stuck out her tongue at him._ _

__"Yup, her and Snart even scarred her for life like real parents." Mick informed with a dirty grin as he approached, taking the safety off his gun and earning a glare from Sara._ _

__"Not information I needed," Oliver decided and Mick only smirked all the more._ _

__"None of us need it, but we all hear it." He continued to mock, only laughing harder when Sara slapped his arm as her futile means of asking him to shut up._ _

__"If you all are done behaving like children, we do have a mission to attend to." Rip scolded._ _

__"Which ironically is saving their children." Felicity chimed in, earning a glare from Rip that pleaded with her to zip it, not that she hadn't ever received worse from Oliver._ _

___"Just get to the cargo bay," the Englishman pleaded with those going on board the enemy ship. "We'll connect our ship with theirs so you can get on, and we'll hope Merlin and whoever he's working with aren't waiting at the door to kill us all."_  
.  
.  
. 

__Meanwhile back in the cage, the four prisoners could see the Waverider drawing ever closer and the tunneled ramp extending onto the ship that they were being held on._ _

__"What are the chances they're all on board?" Evelyn questioned as they watched the Waverider and it's occupants draw ever closer to a worse than deadly trap._ _

__"Doesn't matter," Courtney decided, "Once any of them are in the Phantom Zone there's no getting them out, especially when none of them know it's a future Malcolm they're dealing with."_ _

__"Then we have to get out of here," Wally decided._ _

__"How?" Jax demanded, "You want to bust out into the airless vacuum of space?" He continued but Wally only shrugged, clearly not having any actual ideas._ _

__"Hey Jax?" Evelyn asked while pacing the cage, eyeing the ceiling skeptically. "When you went all over the cage on your ship with a fine tooth comb, did you try getting out through the ceiling?" She asked, "Because ours now leads to an empty room." She said and with the other three now looking at him Jax considered the idea, because he hadn't before._ _

__"I'm assuming Oliver keeps as many weapons on him as Sara, and since he's teaching you, you got anything on you?" He asked and with a curious expression, as though she were unsure, Evelyn opened up her jacket and began going through the inner compartments._ _

__"Just few bandages and a knife I barely know how to use," she answered, holding out the object that was obviously going to be more effective at the moment._ _

__Jax nodded before looking up at the ceiling, realizing that getting up there was going to be a challenge. But then he looked back at Evelyn, eyeing her critically and trying to determine if the idea processing through his mind would work or not._ _

__"Ok, I've got a plan." He finally said, deciding it was worth a shot. "You good with climbing?" He asked Evelyn who shrugged._ _

__"If I got something to climb." She replied and Jax nodded,_ _

__"Think you can get onto my shoulders?" He asked and she nodded._ _

__Acting quickly, Jax cupped his hands and Evelyn placed the handle of her knife between her teeth. She clamored up Jax's body with only a little help from Wally and Courtney, and they stood by to catch her should she fall once she was up. Taking the knife in her hand and stretching onto her toes, causing Jax to wobble just a bit but not enough to cause Evelyn too much panic. She tried wedging her knife into any sort of gap on the edge of the ceiling but there was none, and she soon began informing Jax of that in a very frustrated manner._ _

__"Well try harder," Jax ordered and Evelyn scowled,_ _

__"Oh yeah, busting through a solid steel ceiling with a standard issue knife, yeah it'll work if I just-"_ _

__A sudden movement of the ship abruptly cut her off, sending both her Jax crashing down and the knife flying. Wally cried out as they all landed and Evelyn's knife sliced through his shoulder before dropping harmlessly to the floor._ _

__"Wally!" Evelyn exclaimed in a mix of worry and guilt but the boy had no time to respond to her._ _

__"It's too late," Courtney declared in horror, watching the Waverider outside being pulled down as both ships began plunging into the Phantom Zone below. It looked as though the Waverider were trying to break away at least, but even if they did manage to get it out of Merlin's hold it would hardly matter._ _

__Suddenly, the ceiling above their heads opened up, revealing Barry standing over them._ _

__"Hey guys," he greeted casually, though even under the cowl one could see the worry on his face. "Courtney, I believe this is yours." He said, holding down her staff._ _

__He didn't let go once she grabbed it, instead letting her latch on and use it as a means of climbing out of the cell. She wasn't even fully out when they ship's downward motion increased, forcing both her and Barry to grip the staff for their lives and she just barely managed to clamor out._ _

__"Go!" Jax shouted up when he saw Courtney looking back at them, behind him Evelyn was already working on Wally's shoulder with her emergency bandages._ _

__"Jax-" Barry started but the younger man cut him off._ _

__"There's no time, get her back to the ship and get away!" He ordered and while Barry looked partially convinced that this course of action would be a suicide move on Jax's part, Courtney knew better._ _

__"Can you run with me?" She asked the older speedster, who now looked at her as though she was the crazy one._ _

__"We can't leave them," he tried to say but she wouldn't listen, there was no time._ _

__"Trust me," she ordered and so with an apprehensive nod Barry agreed, and with one last look of sorrow to her friends, Courtney climbed onto his back._ _

__Barry took off through the ship, and although he wanted to stop and help he knew that if he did he and Courtney would both be goners. He could feel the world around him freezing, becoming trapped in one eternal moment of stillness. When they reached the boarding ramp it was the only thing moving, and it was moving away. But he made the jump, his speed making it so the lack of an atmosphere didn't even effect him or his passenger, and the two of them crashed in a heap on the floor of the Waverider's cargo bay._ _


	6. Rescue Mission (Part 4)

"Felicity! Felicity!" Cisco had been shouting over the link to the Waverider for the past five minutes with no response, and so far it was proving to be the longest five minutes of Leonard Snart's life.

Almost the instant the team boarded the other ship, communication went fuzzy. Then it came back, then it went fuzzy again, then all that could be heard over the other end was screaming coming from those in charge of the monitors, and finally it had gone dead altogether. Thankfully Cisco didn't think that the line was truly dead, most likely someone had accidently shut it off in the midst of the panic that they had been hearing. Of course that was hardly a reassuring theory, because based on the shouts and frantic rustling on the other end they were indeed in a panic up there. A panic means something is going wrong, and Leonard did not like the idea of something going wrong on the ship with the man who killed Sara.

"Would you stop shouting?" Amaya finally asked of Cisco, clearly growing annoyed with him. "There's no static, the damn thing is off on their end!" She exclaimed, ordinarily Len would've found the argument very amusing. He would've thought that it was hilarious that the woman from 1942 was more observant of technology than a present day engineer. Normally he would've made some sort of remark about how bad of a plan this had been from the start.

But this wasn't normally.

Sara is on that ship, and who knows what's happening to her right now. With a glance out of the corner of his eye he looked over at Ramirez, and the kid looked just about as worried as Len. In fact, maybe he was even worse. Sure Leonard was worried about his girlfriend, but the poor kid had his entire team up there. Save for some Curtis guy he had heard mentioned, apparently he was missing due to a tech malfunction locking him in a new panic room inside Arrow's bunker. The thing is, apparently, on a timer and will let him out after a few hours, but until then not even Felicity could hack it open. Anyway, Leonard decided that if there was one person aside from himself he felt bad for, it would be the kid who pretty much has his entire family up there.

Suddenly the radio cackled to life, static coming through the speakers and everyone in the room leaning in closer in anticipation of whatever would come over the line.

"Cisco?" Felicity's voiced finally asked, Leonard's heart practically surging with the hope that everyone was ok up there.

"Felicity! We're here! Are you guys ok?" Ramon demanded and there was a second of silence, then another, and then…

"We're coming back," Felicity informed, and just like that Len's heart sank into his stomach.  
.  
.  
.

"So that's it?" Joe demanded once Courtney and Barry explained what happened once what was left of the Waverider crew returned.

"Hopefully not," Stein said, speaking up from where he was leaning heavily on a desk for support.

The others all eyed him skeptically; somehow he had become a living, ticking clock on this mission.

"We will get them back," Barry assured those who had stayed behind, not that they were easily convinced.

"How?" Len snarled, vacating his seat and marching towards his former enemy, who admittedly was a little shaken by the icy glare he had just found himself on the receiving end of. "Need I remind you that you lost them to a dimension with no way out?" He demanded,

"From the inside," Courtney pointed out. "They're frozen, but we're not." She continued before taking her staff and extending it out in front of her. A ray of light appeared from it and incased a nearby chair in a glowing aura, and when Courtney raised her staff the chair also lifted into the air before she willed it down and eyed Cisco, who looked as though his mind had just been blown. "Think you can upgrade it to withstand the weight of the Waverider?" She questioned and the engineer nodded.

"You bet," he assured, his excited face only growing when he was tossed the device.

As Cisco headed off to his workshop, gawking in awe at the new instrument in his hands the whole time, Len grabbed ahold of his sister's elbow when she made a move to follow him.

"Do you think he can do it?" He whispered just quietly enough for her to hear.

She turned to face him, looking up and seeing just how worried he was; and she knew why.

"Yes," she admitted honestly, "But even if he can't, don't worry, we'll get Sara out of there."  
.  
.  
.

Meanwhile, in the Phantom Zone, not everything had gone the way that the team believed. Wally noticed this when Evelyn's hands suddenly stopped working to patch him up when she was in the middle of wrapping the bandage.

"Evelyn?" He asked but he got no response, she just stared vacantly ahead of her, her body frozen. "Evelyn?" He tried again but again it was futile. Looking past her he noticed that Jax was still looking up at the open ceiling of their cell, and showing no signs of movement. "Jax?" He asked but just like with Evelyn he didn't get an answer, not even so much as a flinch.

Deciding that the effects of the zone must have overtaken his cellmates, and for whatever reason past right by him, Wally gently pushed Evelyn away from him and stood up. He walked over to where Jax stood and waved a hand in front of his face, nothing. He looked up at where Courtney had gotten out, where Jax's gaze was still fixed, and tried to determine a way up there. The thought of mimicking Evelyn's earlier actions of climbing on Jax crossed his mind, but more as a joke than anything else. He wouldn't do that, if he did there is an excellent chance that both he and Jax would topple over and get seriously hurt. Instead he opted for jumping, just barely grazing the rim of the ledge the first four times before he finally managed to lock his hand onto it with a death grip. With almost as much effort he brought his other arm up, and then with the use of all his strength Wally managed to pull himself up and out of the cell. Granted getting the leverage to get out involved him flopping and inching like a fish out of water, but he made it out.

Once in the main room of the brig he looked around, only to find that he was alone. There was no one else in the room, but Wally still got the feeling that he might not be the only unaffected one on the ship. So he grabbed a nearby crowbar and began cautiously walking.  
.  
.  
.

Now that the plan to rescue their missing teammates had only succeeded in imprisoning more of them, the new plan was to send Courtney up with her staff once Cisco finished modifying it. Leonard had decided that he was going with her, and no one dared argue with it. Also going was Rip, Stein, Caitlin, and Cisco. Felicity would be taking her turn as ground monitor this time, Cisco arguing that he needs to be able to monitor his upgrades to the staff from up there. Really, everyone knew he just wanted to go into outer space.

But waiting for everything to be ready, it was testing Leonard's patients after only an hour. So he decided to go out to the parking lot and get some air, and it wasn't long before somebody found him.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready?" He asked Courtney as she approached him, worry evident in her eyes.

"Barry's coming with us," she informed him. Annoyance briefly washed over his features before he dismissed it, figuring that had it not been for Allen, Courtney wouldn't even be here.

"Fine," he agreed but that didn't seem to be what she had really come to tell him.

"Stein's really starting to suffer from being separated from Jax, he's trying to hide it but… he keeps sitting down or leaning on something the first chance he gets." She was still stalling, Len could tell that much, and so in order to avoid encouraging her he simply nodded at the information and let the uncomfortable silence overtake.

"Anything else?" He asked after a few minutes and when Courtney met his eyes he noticed that hers were shimmering with unshed tears.

"What if I can't do this?" She asked, up until now she had never really worried all that much about her performance on missions. She knows she's a capable fighter, and besides, despite being from the future she somehow isn't the only Legend who could majorly screw the timeline. But now it was different, this was her mission, and if she failed it then the future would become a very different place.

"You tell me," Snart replied and she scoffed.

"I'm not telling you about the future." She deadpanned and he shrugged.

"Then I can't help you," he told her but at the look in her eyes, the look of utter helplessness and fear that Len knew was also evident in his own features, he let up a little. "You can do this," he assured her in voice that was almost a whisper. "I've seen you use that staff of yours a hundred times, it's the same thing you always do, just on a bigger scale." He continued with a shaky breath she nodded.

"Ok."  
.  
.  
.

The further Wally went down the corridors of the ship, the more things around him started to feel like a horror movie. There were people scattered about here and there, their bodies frozen in one moment for what could be all eternity. The fact that some of these statues were people that he knows only intensified the sickening feeling he was getting in the pit of his stomach. He saw a man in a robotic suit frozen mid stride as though he had been running, and the burly man watching his back had a flame thrower frozen mid blast. As Wally drew closer to the bridge he passed a blonde woman with the blonde man who had visited their cell before pinned against a wall, the knife she pressed dangerously close to his throat making Wally gulp in fear for the man. Even frozen, the fire in her eyes was alive and burning and with something the young man would not wish to find himself on the receiving end of. He kept walking, finding Oliver in the doorway of the brig positioned as though he had just fired an arrow, and sure enough one was stopped halfway across the room in mid-air. Sitting in the Captain's chair was a man dressed in black, Malcolm Merlin from what Wally was guessing, and a smug look frozen on his face.

It was then that Wally heard it, the sound of footsteps approaching towards him. He looked around frantically for a place to hide, but there wasn't one. So he decided to go with the next best option and stand up against the doorframe, crowbar raised at the ready. Unfortunately Wally's hearing may not be as good as he initially thought, and while he was waiting for the owners of the footsteps to enter the bridge he heard them fade away, before a snort of laughter sounded from the other side of the bridge.

Whipping his head to the side Wally saw the Reverse Flash, cowl pulled off because why not?, standing in the other doorway that lead into the room.

"Nice try kid," He mocked, walking further into the room before stopping at the floating arrow. "Well that's no good." He deadpanned, knocking the object to the ground. "Don't bother with the controls kid, I already tried, this damn place even freezes machines." He grumbled whilst taking a seat on one of the empty flight chairs, noticing how Wally was still looking at him with nothing but fear. "Take it easy kid, I'm not gonna kill you. Well not now anyway." He assured but that did nothing to make Wally feel any better.

"Why?" He managed to get out and Thawne smirked.

"Because when I take you down, I want to watch as Flash witnesses it." He mocked before a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Bonus points if I can get your sister there too."

"You're sick," Wally deadpanned; Thawne shook his head in denial.

"Not sick," he insisted, "Just a man with a very well planned agenda." He continued, getting up and approaching Wally as so to look him in the eye. Wally held his gaze, determined not to show his fear.

"So you planned to get stuck here?" He asked and at that Thawne relented a bit.

"That was a flaw in the plan," he admitted, "Trusting Merlin was a mistake, I should've known that there's probably a reason he never ends up as anything more than a footnote in history. Not even for anything he did as Ra's or afterwards, just for the time he ran Merlyn Global." He continued only to realize that Wally was still looking at him in absolute fear and maybe even a little bit of confusion. "What is it kid?" He asked with a mocking laugh, "I already told you I'm not going to kill you today."

"How," Wally began, "How come you and me aren't frozen?" He questioned and at the question Thawne's wry grin widened.

"You don't know what you are, do you?" He asked and Wally only looked at him with fear, the pit in his stomach managing to grow deeper as what Courtney had said about his future self came back to him. "The Speed Force protects speedsters from the effects of places like the Phantom Zone. Although we can't use our powers here, it sure beats standing around frozen." He explained, the explanation only serving to make Wally's face grow pale as he tried to think back and figure out when he had, apparently unknowingly, become a speedster.  
.  
.  
.

"Are you sure this thing is safe?" Courtney asked hours later, they were back up in the Waverider and she was preparing to head out so that she could use her staff to retrieve Malcolm's ship, and eyeing Cisco's homemade spacesuit suspiciously.

"Of course," the engineer assured her. "I built it after the particle accelerator exploded, it's meant to withstand the pipeline during a an explosion. Besides, I ran all sorts of tests, it's perfectly safe." He continued but Courtney still appeared skeptical of the suit.

"We wouldn't let you wear it if it wasn't safe." Caitlin insisted and so with a nod, albeit a hesitant one, Courtney slipped into the suit and headed to the cargo bay of the ship.

Once she was outside and standing perched on the roof of the Waverider, Courtney followed Cisco's instructions as he spoke through her comm. link, using a detector he had installed in her staff to find the downed ship.

"There!" He suddenly shouted, so loud that she jumped. "Right there! The ship is about two hundred feet deep, in the direction that you're pointing."

"Ok," Courtney said before activating the, now much more powerful, tractor beam of her staff and watching as the light of it cut into the Phantom Zone, before she felt it incasing the ship.

She started pulling, using all of her concentration to bring the ship out of the zone, but it was quickly proving a hard battle.

"Courtney," Snart's voice suddenly rang over her comm., now she knew she was in trouble if the others could already tell that she was slipping.

"I'm trying Snart," She quickly defended, "But I don't think I can-"

"Shut up and listen to me." He interrupted, "You may think you're being quiet when you're complaining to Jax about needing a babysitter-"

"You heard that?" The blonde asked in horror.

"Every word," Leonard assured her. "Apparently I don't know the real story behind you joining us, but I do know that you're step-father told us he wanted us to take you because our team would be a good place for you to come into your own"

"Well he lied," Courtney insisted with a roll of her eye.

"Did he?" Snart asked, "I know you've done more here than you ever did there, and even if he did lie, what's the harm in showing him that you DON'T need a babysitter?" He asked but Courtney said nothing. "You want to be a hero Courtney, heroes don't have the word _can't _in their vocabularies."__

__"Little late for a pep talk, Snart." Courtney joked but even over the comm. she could feel that he was not amused, or that's what she thought until she heard him smirk._ _

__"Look ahead of you," instructed and so when she complied she was amazed, because there was Merlyn's ship, rising out of the Phantom Zone._ _


End file.
